An architect has a concrete idea to help a troubled South Side community

Paul Preissner Architects

Chicago architect Paul Preissner won an award for this design of the Ring of Hope community center in Chicago's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. Preissner proposes to use different sizes of load-bearing precast concrete for the exterior of the proposed building.

Chicago architect Paul Preissner won an award for this design of the Ring of Hope community center in Chicago's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. Preissner proposes to use different sizes of load-bearing precast concrete for the exterior of the proposed building. (Paul Preissner Architects)

Before architecture becomes a tangible thing that shapes how we live, it begins in the realm of the intangible — as an idea.

Oak Park architect Paul Preissner was recognized on Monday for a bright idea: His design for a community center in the city’s violence-plagued Greater Grand Crossing area won an honorable mention in the annual Progressive Architecture Awards, which recognize promising as-yet-unbuilt designs and are named for a forward-looking architecture magazine that published its last issue in 1995.

The design calls for an innovative use of precast concrete that would recall the textured “corduroy concrete” buildings of the 1960s but aims to be less imposing than those heavyweight structures and less expensive. Preissner compares it to a slightly unruly stack of dominoes.

For more than a year now, the 44-year-old associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s architecture school has been working with Ring of Hope Youth and Family Services, a nonprofit on South Chicago Avenue, just off the Chicago Skyway.

When Ring of Hope put out the word online that it needed an architectural model for a new building, Preissner responded. But instead of just making a model, he designed a building and deferred any charges until the group could raise funds.

“Paul is amazing,” said Ring of Hope’s executive director, Anthony D. Wright. “He hasn’t charged us one dime. He has really been able to capture our vision.”

The vision is for a building that would allow the nonprofit to provide what Wright calls “wrap-around services for the community.”

A bigger home would have more room for those activities, plus classrooms for adult education and a green roof. It would rise on a triangle-shaped vacant lot in the same block.

Paul Preissner Architects

Ring of Hope describes itself as a community-based youth mentorship and physical fitness initiative. As designed by Chicago architect Paul Preissner, its proposed community center would include a boxing ring and training areas.

Ring of Hope describes itself as a community-based youth mentorship and physical fitness initiative. As designed by Chicago architect Paul Preissner, its proposed community center would include a boxing ring and training areas. (Paul Preissner Architects)

Not surprisingly, funding is a hurdle. The projected cost is $6 million and no money has been raised yet, Wright acknowledged.

But Wright, whose day job is being a social worker at a Chicago public school, is trying to piece together public funds and grants from private foundations. And he’s getting help from the nearby Gary Comer Youth Center, home to the South Shore Drill Team. The center, which owns the land where Ring of Hope’s new building would go, is leasing that plot to the group for a dollar a year, Wright said.

Simply by existing, the Comer center provides another kind of help: It shows potential funders how distinguished architecture can serve a troubled community. Designed by Chicago architect John Ronan, the exuberant, spatially inventive building won national design honors from the American Institute of Architects after it opened in 2006.

Preissner’s design may not rise to that level, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.

Shaped to hold costs down, it calls for load-bearing exterior walls of precast concrete — the same material builders use for bland tilt-up warehouses.

But Preissner likes to mess with ordinary things, which is what he does here. Instead of monolithic flat walls like you see in the warehouses, his building would be enlivened by three types of precast concrete pieces, each with a different curving exterior profile. The profile would get progressively larger — and on the top floor, taller — as the building rises, giving the building a dynamic, sculptural look.

That look would be enhanced by the building’s corners — not neatly buttoned-down, but playfully messy, with one facade plane running past the other. The panels also would extend above the roofline, forming the equivalent of a railing for the building’s planted roof.

Paul Preissner Architects

Chicago architect Paul Preissner has studied the possibility of using colors to enliven the Ring of Hope concrete building's exterior. This study incorporates a yellow exit stair and different colors, including green, on some of the exterior's concrete.

Chicago architect Paul Preissner has studied the possibility of using colors to enliven the Ring of Hope concrete building's exterior. This study incorporates a yellow exit stair and different colors, including green, on some of the exterior's concrete. (Paul Preissner Architects)

Concrete buildings are infamously tough and tough to love, but Preissner tries to warm up the material with the corduroy treatment and a dark black aggregate that would give the concrete a more vibrant presence than flat gray.

He’s also explored the possibility of coloring the concrete — potentially a wise move, given that the material can look pretty bleak on the gray days that occur with depressing regularity in Chicago’s long winters. Another sculptural element, an exterior stair, might even be a sunny yellow.

The building’s sculptural character would extend inside, particularly to the second floor, where an exposed concrete core with a bull-nosed end would subdivide a boxing ring and a basketball court. Needless to say, ample padding would be needed to keep athletes from running into it and breaking arms and legs.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether Preissner’s dream will ever materialize, but it already qualifies as a strong display of out-of-the-box thinking. I hope Chicago’s philanthropic community and political leaders will consider supporting this promising interweaving of social purpose and aesthetic innovation.